Enough Already

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  2 Corinthians 12:9  NASB

Sufficient – I don’t believe it!  I want to believe it, but it just seems impossible.  Can God’s grace really be sufficient?  Is it really enough to take care of the issues, trials, failures and continuous challenges in my life?  Am I supposed to just resign myself to whatever happens pretending that God’s grace is good enough?

Think about the context of this oft-repeated verse.  Paul is wrestling with “the thorn in the flesh,” that particular problem that comes to him as a messenger from the Accuser in order to constantly remind him of his inadequacies.  The thorn acts as a deterrent to pride.  It forces Paul to be humble because it will not go away.  Paul desperately wants to be rid of this problem, but God’s answer to Paul’s pleading is, “My grace is sufficient for you.”  The Greek is ‘arkei sou.  We read the words and think, “Oh, yes.  God is good.  He is able.”  But try applying these words to your own life.  Now it isn’t so easy to deflect the failures, the persistent sins, the sense of guilt, is it?  Grace seems adequate to forgive me and get me to heaven (if that is really its goal), but far too often it doesn’t seem sufficient to get me through the next twenty-four hours here, where life is a mess.

Perhaps we can straighten out some of this discomfort with a look at the Hebrew parallels.  The Hebrew word for “sufficient” really means something a bit more powerful.  Checking the LXX, we find ‘arkei used in Proverbs 30:15-16.  The Hebrew word is hon.  It means “Enough!”  It is connected to the all-consuming fire and the insatiable appetite of the grave.  But that’s not its typical meaning.  Most of the time, hon is associated with wealth.  It’s about having plenty of money to cover any emergency.  We understand that concept very well.  What would your life be like if you had enough funds available to cover any circumstance life handed you?  What would you feel like if you knew that you couldn’t run out of money?  Would you feel secure?  Relieved?  Unburdened?  Free?  Yes, I suspect you would.  Riches make life a lot easier, don’t they?  Of course, there is the perennial fear of the wealthy that they will somehow lose their fortunes and be reduced to living like the rest of us.  But the biblical context of hon carries with it the security of knowing you have enough – more than enough – to meet life’s challenges.

That’s what God tells Paul.  It isn’t that grace is just enough to get by.  Sufficiency often implies enough to meet a particular need but no more.  When we say, “His work is sufficient,” we mean that it meets the standard, but that’s all it does.  It isn’t excellent.  It isn’t spectacular.  It’s just “good enough for government work.”  But that’s not hon.  God’s grace is sufficient because it is inexhaustible.  It is beyond measure.  It is overflowing abundance.  In fact, we might even say that God’s grace is the only truly hon experience in life.  Everything else is subject to temporal limits, physical decay or memory loss.  But not God’s grace.  It never runs out!

You have problems?  Me too.  You have struggles that don’t seem to get better?  Yes, so do I.  You think that these will never end?  That’s when you need to measure them against grace – inexhaustible grace, insurmountable grace, grace in such abundance that it will never run out on you.  That’s why Paul’s focus becomes contentment.  Grace is enough when you know it is about hon.  Nothing compares to it.

Topical Index: sufficient, ‘arkei, hon, enough, 2 Corinthians 12:9